The Development of an ESP law Dictionary for the US Constitutional Cases: An Approach Based on Applied Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics

本项目旨在基于14,531个美国宪法案例，为美国宪法案例制作一个法律语料库。该语料库的目的是为基于应用语言学和语料库语言学的美国宪法案例ESP法律词典的开发提供基础。从2000年开始的四年时间里，该项目主要集中在以下五个方面：1)通过对美国宪法案件中典型法律词汇和短语使用频率的调查，选择美国宪法案件中的某些法律术语；2)从这组精选的法律术语中，使用计算机分析具有法律意义的一般词汇（半专业词汇），以查看以下类别：含义，语法特征，搭配模式和频繁出现的特定话语特征；3)法律专业词汇的出现率由搭配模式决定；4)为美国宪法案件建立了一个平行语料库（英语和日语）…5)在上述研究的基础上，通过列举法律术语的含义、语法模式和频率模式，为编写美国宪法案件专用英语词典奠定了基础。2003年4月，经文部科学省正式批准，该项目更名为“基于美国宪法案例的法律百科全书在日本ESP教育中的应用”（项目编号：15320072）。这个新项目将特别关注上述5)，即ESP词典的开发，这将于2006年实现。这项研究在理论上受到应用语言学和语料库语言学两大学术领域的指导，与以前出版的英、日文普通法词典相比，是一个相当大的创新。虽然以前出版的法律词典解释了法律术语的定义和它们的历史背景，但它们从来没有说明法律术语应该如何在上下文中使用。此外，这些词典都没有解释在某些上下文中，一般词语是如何在法律意义上使用的，而法律意义是法律文件中最常出现的。根据之前在1998年至2000年间进行的一项研究，“通过计算机分析开发ESP材料和方法（项目编号：09878047）”，法律专业学生在阅读案例时面临很大困难，因为他们无法理解半技术性法律词汇的使用。对于学生来说，掌握法律专业词汇的意思要比掌握这些半专业法律词汇容易得多。通过对法律词汇在一般语境和法律语境中使用差异的调查，本研究指出了美国宪法案例中法律意义上的一般词汇的典型使用模式，并解释了英语和日语中法律术语和短语的使用。少

This project aimed to produce a legal corpus for US Constitutional Cases based on 14,531 US Constitutional Cases. The purpose of this corpus was to provide the groundwork for the development of an ESP law dictionary for US Constitutional cases based on Applied Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics. In the four years since 2000, this project has focused the following five points: 1) After investigating the frequency of typical legal words and phrases used in US Constitutional cases, certain legal terms on US Constitutional cases were selected; 2) From this select group of legal terms, general words used in a legal sense (semi-technical words) were analyzed using the computer to look at the following categories: meanings, grammatical features, collocational patterns and frequently occurring specific discoursal features; 3) The rate of the occurrence of technical legal words was determined by the collocational patterns; 4) A parallel corpus (English and Japanese) for US Constitutional cases … More was created; 5) The groundwork was laid for the development of an ESP dictionary for US Constitutional cases with a number of examples of the use of legal terms based on the above research: meanings, grammatical patterns and frequency patterns. With the official approval of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in April 2003 this project became a new project entitled "The Development of a Legal Encyclopedia based on the US Constitutional Cases Application to ESP Education in Japan (Project Number: 15320072)". In particular, this new project will focus on 5) above, the development of an ESP dictionary, which will be realised in 2006.This research had been guided theoretically by the academic fields of both Applied Linguistics and Corpus Linguistics, a considerable innovation when compared with previously published Common Law Dictionaries in both English and Japanese. Although previously published law dictionaries explain the definitions of legal technical words and their historical backgrounds, they never indicate how the legal words should be used in context. Furthermore, none of those dictionaries give an explanation about how in certain contexts general words are used in the legal sense which most frequently appears in legal documents. According to prior research conducted between 1998 and 2000, "The Development of ESP Materials and Methods through the Computer Based Analysis (Project Number: 09878047)", law students face much difficulty in reading cases because they cannot understand the use of semi-technical legal words. It is much easier for students to master the meanings of legal technical words than these semi-technical legal words. Through an investigation into the difference in use between legal words in a general context as contrasted with a legal context, this research indicates typically used patterns in US constitutional cases of general words in a legal sense as well as explaining in both English and Japanese the use of technical legal words and phrases. Less